Suspected drug hitmen killed the mayor of a small town in northern Mexico on Sunday in a region where two car bombs exploded last week and the bodies of 72 murdered migrant workers were found.
Mayor Marco Antonio Leal was shot dead by gunmen in SUVs as he drove through his rural municipality of Hidalgo near the Gulf of Mexico in Tamaulipas state, the local attorney general’s office said. Leal’s four-year-old daughter was slightly wounded in the attack, a spokesman said.
It was not immediately clear why Leal, a member of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was targeted, but Tamaulipas has become one of Mexico’s bloodiest flashpoints since the start of the year as rival hitmen from the Gulf cartel and its former armed wing, the Zetas, fight over smuggling routes into the US.
Leal spent Sunday morning in a meeting with other Tamaulipas PRI mayors and the governor-elect, also a member of the PRI, which has long been dominant in the state.
Gunmen threw grenades at the town hall earlier this year and Hidalgo’s former mayor, also from the PRI, narrowly survived an assassination attempt this month.
President Felipe Calderon, a conservative from the ruling National Action Party, condemned the attack and vowed to continue his fight against drug gangs.
“This cowardly crime and the reprehensible violent events recently in the region strengthen our commitment to continue fighting the criminal groups that seek to terrify families [in Tamaulipas],” Calderon said in a statement.
Drug gangs killed a mayor from Calderon’s party near the wealthy industrial city of Monterrey in neighboring Nuevo Leon state this month, as attacks on public officials grow.
In a sign of escalating drug war violence, two car bombs exploded in Tamaulipas’ state capital, Ciudad Victoria, on Friday, three days after marines found the bodies of 72 migrants gunned down at a ranch in the state.
The blasts, the second and third modest bombs planted in a vehicle this month in Ciudad Victoria and the fourth in Mexico since July, caused no casualties but damaged buildings.
Hitmen threw three grenades in the center of the manufacturing city of Reynosa, also in Tamaulipas and across from McAllen, Texas on Saturday, injuring 15 people, Reynosa city hall said.
Gunmen murdered a popular candidate for Tamaulipas governor in June in Mexico’s worst political killing in 16 years.
Calderon has blamed the surge in violence in Tamaulipas on the split between the Gulf and Zetas gang but has vowed to crush the cartels.
More than 28,000 people have died in drug violence since Calderon launched his war on drugs in late 2006, prompting fears that bloodshed could undermine tourism and investment as Mexico slowly recovers from its worst recession since 1932.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese